


"the normal guy"

by SoVeryAverageMe



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Canon, Bonding, Cleaning, Clumsy!Tsukishima, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Interhigh Exchange 2018, Interhigh Treat, N Things, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Teammates to Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14127522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoVeryAverageMe/pseuds/SoVeryAverageMe
Summary: It was an unspoken rule: Sugawara taught Kageyama, Daichi mentored Yamaguchi, and Asahi inspired Hinata.And Kiyoko?Kiyoko had Tsukishima Kei.(Or, four scenes in the unexpected friendship between Tsukishima Kei and Shimizu Kiyoko, and the one time he pretended to be her boyfriend).





	"the normal guy"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowysatoru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowysatoru/gifts).



> I've wanted to write a Kiyoko and Tsukishima friendship fic for a long time and snowysatoru's prompts gave me the excuse I needed to finally do it! (although this was probably the most unexpected relationship to come from prompting Yachi, Kiyoko, Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima). 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_(one:  first meetings)_

Kiyoko had mostly gotten used to the stares and the looks of thinly-veiled awe. Since starting high school the list of her admirers had only grown longer and the inquiring looks, more frequent. She liked feeling beautiful, but sometimes she wished it wasn’t such a big deal.

The volleyball team was nice. They appreciated her for her managing abilities more than her looks, even if they sometimes seemed to fall under her spell too. Even her fellow third-years sometimes seemed reduced to awkwardness when faced with her directly. Tanaka and Noya had never quite lost their infatuation with her, but at this point it was less of a bother and more like one of their many quirky personality traits.

By her third year, she knew what to expect from the new volleyball recruits. They’d be a little starry-eyed, awkward, and probably say something a little cringe-worthy. Eventually they’d mostly get over it or join Noya and Tanaka’s little gang of admirers. Worst case scenario, she’d have to put up with some bad flirting and stilted banter for a couple of weeks before they came to their senses.

She’d met two of the first years on her way to the gym. For some reason the two of them were just watching from one of the outside windows. They stared at her when she passed, but didn’t do anything noteworthy. She couldn’t tell if they were awkward because of her or just awkward in general.

After dropping off a box in the gym, she returned to the main office to make copies of the club recruitment form. Grabbing the papers off the printer, she pushed open the door to leave and crashed into someone, spilling them everywhere.

She bent down to pick them up and heard the stranger _tsk_ above her before leaning down to join her. Once they’d collected all the sheets, they both stood and she got her first good view of the stranger she rammed into.

He was tall, especially for a first year (which he must have been, since Kiyoko had never seen him before). There were headphones around his neck, and he had distinctive blond hair with thick hipster-like black glasses.

“I think these are yours,” he said, handing her the stack of papers. A look of surprise crossed his face when he glanced down and read the top of the forms. “Are these for the boy’s volleyball team?”

“Hmm?” She was busy reorienting the flyers so they all faced upright. “Oh yeah. I’m their manager.”

“Oh good, you’ll save me tons of time.” He swung his backpack around and dug through it, finding a folder. He pulled out two crisp sheets from it and handed them to her. “My friend and I are interested in joining. Would it be possible for you to give these to the captain?”

“Sure. I can do that,” she said grabbing the forms and adding them to the top of the pile already in her hand.

“Thanks so much,” the boy said, a small, almost unnoticeable, smile on his face. He turned on his heel and walked out of the office, while she headed back to the gym to make sure that the boys weren’t getting into too much trouble. (She immediately turned the other way when she saw the Vice Principal in there).

It was not until she returned to the team that she realized that her encounter with the strange boy was weirdly normal. He hadn’t tried to flirt with her, stare at her, or freaked out when their fingers had touched.

He was utterly unimpressed with her.

* * *

_(two: practice)_

She found out his name was Tsukishima Kei and that he was pretty much unimpressed by everything. His smiles were reserved for laughing at other’s embarrassment and occasionally, Yamaguchi’s antics. He was perfectly polite with her, but they didn’t talk to each other outside of their brief interactions at volleyball practice.

She didn’t get to muse on the topic for long, because with Interhigh coming up she was busy trying to make sure that everything was in order to make it go as smooth as possible.

Her main goal for the day was to clean the storage closet out that hadn’t been touched in at least five years. The previous manager had said it was just where the team had thrown all their old stuff, and since at the time they _barely_ had a team it was never one of their priorities.

She went through half the keys on the keyring before she found the one that fit the lock. The door was slightly jammed and she had to tug on it with the weight of her body to pry it open. A cloud of dust engulfed the hallway when she finally succeeded. Coughing and waving one of her hands in front of her face, she used her other hand to turn the light on.

Unlabeled, dust-covered boxes surrounded her. She was really starting to regret not taking up Noya and Tanaka’s offers of help. She jogged back to the main gym to grab some cleaning supplies and paper to inventory the closet.

As she grabbed her clipboard off the bench, she noticed that the team had split up for 3-on-3 practice games. Kageyama, Hinata, and Daichi were currently against Suga, Asahi, and Yamaguchi. Noya was helping coach the second-years on dives, which left Tsukishima to keep track of the score.

He watched both sides of court with an inquisitive eye, but with a careful look of boredom crafted on his face. She tucked her clipboard under one arm and walked up to him, leaning carefully against the scoreboard.

“You look like you’re having the time of your life,” she said, with only the barest hints of a smile giving her amusement away.

“Truly living the dream,” he said dryly. Ukai blew the whistle and he flipped the score, looking toward Kiyoko with a curious look on his face, a single eyebrow raised.

She evenly returned the look. “You want to help me instead? It’ll be boring – just cleaning and moving boxes.”

Tsukishima looked at the court and then glanced back at her. “Anything to get me out of this,” he said, already pushing away from the scoreboard. She led him to the supply closet to pick-up cleaning supplies. She piled Tsukishima’s arms full of spray bottles of disinfectants and dusters, while she grabbed the mop.

The two of them returned to the storage closet in a silence that was not completely comfortable, but not entirely awkward either.

Upon seeing the interior of the closet, Tsukishima turned back and looked at her. “I think I rather be keeping score.” His lips curled up in distaste, but she could hear the faint amusement in his voice.

She bumped shoulders with him and rolled her eyes. “You’re stuck with me now.” He sighed, setting the cleaning supplies down in the hallway and looked to her for direction.

“Let’s try to clean the worst of the dust off, so we don’t…” she paused, sending a smirk his way, “like suffocate. Then we can actually look to see what’s been hidden away all these years.”

The two of them worked to remove the thick layer of dust that had covered everything. They had to take several breaks in between or else they would suffer from coughing fits because of all of the dust.

Kiyoko learned two key things about Tsukishima Kei through the experience:

First, he was clumsy. Maybe she should have figured this out earlier, considering that they had _literally_ rammed into each other during their first meeting, but it had never been apparent when he was on the volleyball court. He bumped his head several times on the shelves, tripped over a box in the corner, and nearly dropped the spray bottle twice. Every single time she heard him swear in frustration, she had to muffle a laugh behind her hand. He tried to send her a glare every time it happened, but after a while, even he could see the humor in the situation.

Second, he was a good storyteller with a wicked sense of humor. They started to swap stories in between scrubbing the floors and shoving boxes out of the way. She told him about how she became manager of the team and embarrassing memories of the rest of the third years. In return, she got to hear all about the first years’ shenanigans that he’d been dragged into and childhood stories about him and Yamaguchi. As exasperated as he sounded, affection leaked into every aspect of his voice. He clammed up when she asked about his family, but there was a wistfulness in his eyes that he couldn’t completely hide.

In the end, they managed to clean up most of the storage room. They found at least two previous iterations of the Karasuno jerseys, which had to be at least a decade old. Other finds included a box on uninflated volleyballs, a playbook from twenty years ago, two old team photographs, and a signed yearbook from 1987.

She was about to call it a day when Tsukishima shouted from the back of the storage closest. “We missed a bag!”

“What?” she asked. “We cleared the entire closest out so we could mop the floor. We already inventoried everything.”

“A garbage bag fell down behind one of the shelves. It looks like it’s pretty stuck.” Kiyoko stuck her head back into the closet and saw Tsukishima crouching down by the shelf in the far corner of the room. She walked over to him and leaned her head on the wall to see into the crevice created by the shelf and the wall. Indeed, there was a bulky, black garbage bag that had long been forgotten.

“I’ll go grab the mop and see if we can shove it out the other side,” she said, pushing away from the wall.

Tsukishima stopped her before she could leave. “I think that if we shimmy the shelf away from the wall a little bit, I’ll be able to reach the bag and pull it out.”

“Are you sure you’re not going to hurt yourself?” she asked, smirking. “You’ve hardly been able to walk around in here without falling over.”

“It’s because of my long limbs,” he said with a soft glare. “And those same limbs are going to be able to grab the bag.” He couldn’t keep a straight face and had started smiling before he finished.

The two of them manage to move the shelf three inches away from the wall, and Tsukishima stuck his arm into the space and slowly fished the bag out. His hand was covered in dust by the time he was finished, and he rushed to the bathroom to clean-up, while Kiyoko dragged the deceptively heavy bag into the hallway for inspection.

Once Tsukishima returned, they worked to undo the knots keeping it closed and carefully peered inside the bag.

It looked like a large pile of black fabric that had been haphazardly thrown into the bag. Tsukishima pulled it out, and together they unfolded it. The bag had kept most of the dust and dirt off of it. It was huge, by the time that the two of them had it fully extended, they were more than 15 feet apart.

Kiyoko let out a sharp breath of surprise when she saw the front side of the banner. Large white letters spelled the word “Fly,” with the name of the school in a smaller font below it.

“What is it?” asked Tsukishima, while he helped refold it.

“It’s the old volleyball banner. We used to display it in the bleachers during games.” Kiyoko hadn’t seen the thing in all her time at Karasuno, only having known about it because of its presence in old photos. She had thought that it had been lost when Karasuno’s reputation fell.

“We should clean it,” Tsukishima mused. Kiyoko gave him an inquiring look. “It would look good at Interhigh,” he said, shrugging. He picked up the cleaning supplies and walked away, leaving her standing in the hallway.

The third thing that Kiyoko learned about Tsukishima Kei that day was that he cared more about his teammates than he let on.

* * *

_(three: school)_

Kiyoko picked up the flyers from the office printer and tapped them against the table to align them before placing them into a folder. She was a little worried that she still hadn’t found a replacement manager for the team, and with Spring High coming up she was running out of time. There weren’t that many students that didn’t already participate in a club this late into the school year.

She stopped off in the second year hall, and taped a few flyers up, but she would rather find a first year who would be able to be with the team for longer. She headed toward the first year hall, hanging flyers on bulletin boards as she passed them.

There were more and more curious looks from students as she got closer to the first year hall. She could feel their eyes and hear their whispers when she passed. All the classes were on break for lunch and there were more students than usual hanging out in the hallway.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and sighed, schooling her face into an uncaring look. Knocking on the door of the first classroom, she gave a small smile to the student who peeked their head into the hallway.

“Uhh...” They looked a little starstruck. “You’re a third-year! What are you doing here?”

“Do you think you could grab Tsukishima Kei for me?” She smiled at them again and their eyebrows shot up behind their hairline before the door slammed shut in her face.

From behind the door she could hear them shout, “Tsukishima! There’s some pretty girl at the door for you!” Various muffled whispers broke out, but Kiyoko couldn’t hear any of them.

The door opened and Tsukishima slipped out, trying not to let his gossipy classmates see too much. “It’s not everyday a pretty girl asks for me. Usually it’s the freak duo, and I can hear them coming from a mile away,” he said sarcastically.

She was about to respond when they hear a crash from behind the door that resulted in giggles and one loud shushing of the class. Tsukishima glanced at the door and rolled his eyes. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

He started walking before hearing her response, and she was stuck following him down the hallway. “Don’t want your classmates to overhear our conversation?”

“Might as well make them use their imaginations.” Tsukishima pulled out his phone and waved it in front of her, “Besides, Yamaguchi will tell us what the best rumors are.” Like clockwork, his phone buzzed. He read the text and muffled a snort before turning the screen to face her: _they’re torn between secret lovers and black market essays._

“That explains so much about you,” Kiyoko said laughing. They stopped walking once they reached the stairway at the end of the hall.

Tsukishima leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. “So, what did you need me for?”

Kiyoko waved the flyers in her hands. “I’m looking for a new manager for next year. You wouldn’t happen to know any first years that might be interested?”

“Do I really look like the kind of person to _know_ people?”

“Maybe not,” she snorted. “But you do seem like the kind of person to observe people from afar.”

Tsukishima pursed his lips in thought, leaning his head back against the wall. “There’s a couple of people who could be good candidates, but I think they all already have clubs.”

She pulled a few flyers off the stack and handed them to him. “Why don’t you try and ask them anyways. You can try to be Mr. Social for once.”

“Yeah,” he said drily, “that’s not happening… ever.”

“Just hand out the flyers,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

Tsukishima pushed himself off the wall and headed back toward his classroom. “It’ll be hard to find a manager as good as you.” He slipped back into his classroom without looking back.

Kiyoko couldn’t help but feel a sudden rush of affection for the younger boy.

* * *

_(four:  home)_

Kiyoko didn’t exactly know how she ended up inviting Tsukishima to her house, but some time between Spring High and Nationals, the six-foot tall blond ends up in her bedroom.

She had needed help carrying some supplies home for the volleyball team and, before Noya and Tanaka could volunteer, Tsukishima raised his hand and said that he was headed in the same direction. The two of them walked in comfortable silence.

When they get to her house, she opened the door and yelled that they were home, only to find that her parents were still at work. Tsukishima toed his shoes off at the door and followed her through the house toward her room.

Once there, he set the box of supplies down by her desk and turned to leave the room in order to go home.

“Wait,” she called out as he was almost out of her room. “Do you want anything to drink?”

He waved her off with a mumbled, _“_ I’m fine.”

“C’mon, my parents would never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t treat you like a proper guest.”

“Umm…” Tsukishima gave a helpless shrug, looking utterly awkward in her doorway. “Water, I guess.”

“I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you without a witty comeback.” She moved around him to go through the door and led the way down the hall assuming that he would follow.

Once in the kitchen, he sat on one of the stools by the kitchen island, while she grabbed a glass of water for him and a mug of green iced-tea for herself. She pulled herself into the seat next to him and set his glass down in front of him.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, reaching to take a sip and keeping his eyes trained on the counter in front of him.

“What’s got you so awkward?” Kiyoko stared at him in confusion. “You act like you don’t have a care in the world and suddenly coming over to my house causes this reaction?”

“We’ve never talked to each other outside the context of the team.” Tsukishima shrugged. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You do realize that we’re friends, right? Like _actual_ friends?” She scoffed in disbelief. “We can talk about whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re like the sarcastic little brother that I never had.”

The tension in the room broke almost instantaneously with her words. Tsukishima’s shoulders uncurled and his entire body relaxed. “Noya and Tanaka are going to kill me when they find out I was here.”

“Not before they can interrogate you for information.”

“They’re going to be insufferable.” Tsukishima moaned, as he laid his head on the counter.

“Who knows?” Kiyoko smiled. “They might worship you after this.”

“That just might be worse,” he replied, faking a gagging motion. “Why are they so obsessed with you anyways?”  

“I went from being invisible in middle school to being the girl everyone wanted to be or be with in high school.” She frowned. “It sounds so stuck up when I put it that way. It’s like I’m complaining that people find me pretty.”

“I’d complain too, if I had to put up with Noya and Tanaka every single day.”

“Kei!” She shoved him the shoulder. “I know you secretly love your teammates.”

“They’re…” he trailed off, “competent.” He stared down at his glass of water.

She gently kicked him in the ankle. “Is that Tsukishima Kei for ‘I love you?’”

“Is this what having an older sister is like? Because if so, I would like it to stop.” He sounded annoyed, but it was said with the same affection that he had when he told Yamaguchi to shut up.

“Shush.” Kiyoko knocked her shoulder against his and changed the subject. The two of them talked the entire afternoon away, until Tsukishima realized that he was running late for a meeting with Yamaguchi.

It was not the last time that Tsukishima Kei would find himself in the Kiyoko household.

* * *

_(and one: nationals)_

They had just finished their last game of the day at Nationals. The entire team was elated that they were going on to the quarterfinals. They were still in the locker room, packing up their stuff. She had left Yachi to turn in the team stats to the officials, in order to get her used to the duties she’ll have to do next year. Instead of her usual duties, Kiyoko had volunteered take down the team banner for the night and clean it before tomorrow’s games.

She folded it into imperfect squares and exited the rapidly clearing bleachers into the hallway. Rounding a corner, she bumped into a group of boys from another school and hugged the banner close to her chest to keep it secure. Most of them passed by her with apologies, but three of them stay behind.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” said the leader with a smarmy smirk on his face.

“Uh-” Kiyoko tried to scoot around them to no avail. “I really should be getting back to my team.”

“We could help you find them,” said another one of the boys. “Why don’t you give us your number so that you can call us if you get lost again.”

“I’m not actually lost,” Kiyoko pointed out. She tried to smile, “I just need to get by.”

“Come on,” said the last boy, leaning in closer. “We’re just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help.” She pulled herself up to her full height and glared at them. “I really just want to get back to my team.”

“C’mon sexy,” the leader tried again, “just give us your number.”

Kiyoko glared at them and opened her mouth to show them what she really thought, when a voice from the other side of the hallway interrupted them. “What’s going on here?”

Tsukishima Kei stood at his full height with a look of unimpressed annoyance on his face. The awkward boy he usually was had been replaced by an intimidating wall.

“It’s none of your business,” the group leader said, trying to look tough.

A single eyebrow was raised. “Considering you’re bothering my girlfriend; I would say that it’s exactly my business.”

“She’s your girlfriend?” The opposing team looked skeptical and scanned their eyes up and down Tsukishima’s body. “She’s way out of your league.”

Tsukishima met her gaze and gave her a small smirk, urging her to play along. She threw herself into the role with reckless abandon. “Oh! Kei, I’m so glad that you’re here.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” another boy said, clearly not sold on their act.

She ran through them and crashed into Tsukishima’s side. His arm came down to wrap around her waist and gently pulled her closer to him. “You played so well today!”

“It’s all thanks to you sweetheart.” He gave her soft smile. “I could hear you cheering me on. You’re the team’s lucky charm after all.”

“I bet you couldn’t even hear me over the crowd,” she said, scrunching her nose in amusement.

“I could hear you in my heart.” It was the exact kind of line that both of them would make fun of under different circumstances. For now, Kiyoko played into her role, hiding her face into Tsukishima’s chest in order to muffle a laugh.

“You’re such a liar,” she joked in a cutesy voice.

“We can continue this conversation later,” he said turning to the strangers that were standing in front of them befuddled. “I just wanted to make sure that these boys weren’t bothering you.”

The boys looked nervous when faced with Tsukishima’s indifferent glare. The leader quickly spoke up. “No. There wasn’t any trouble. We were just making sure she didn’t need any help.”

“Is this true?” he asked, looking down at Kiyoko. Tsukishima has at least six inches on the leader, who looked anxious.

She smiled at the three boys in front of her, terrifyingly confident knowing she had power over their lives in that moment. With one last glare, she turned and gave Tsukishima a soft smile. “It’s fine Kei. They were just passing by.” She flashed a look in their direction. “I’m sure it won’t happen again.”

“Yeah!” One of the boys shouted. “We’ll be staying out of your way!”

“If you say so, sweetheart,” he said to Kiyoko, completely ignoring their response. He turned toward the group and raised a single eyebrow, which caused them to scurry away. Once they were around the corner, Tsukishima let go of her and stepped back with a sigh.  

“I know you didn’t need anyone to save you…” he trailed off. “I just couldn’t stand here and do nothing.”

“I was just going to smash their feet in if they didn’t stop,” she replied. “I think your way was much more fun.”

“I would have smashed their feet in a lot sooner.”

“They’re volleyball players,” Kiyoko shrugged. “I had to at least give them the chance before ruining their careers.”

“I wish I had photos of their faces.” Tsukishima smirked. “I would hang them up for motivation.”

Kiyoko shook her head in amusement, but stayed silent.

The two were shaken out of the moment by screaming from the other end of the hall. “Kiyoko! You’re okay! Tsukishima didn’t do anything, right?”

“We never tell Noya and Tanaka what happened here.” Tsukishima glanced at her, before turning his attention to the two boys coming crashing toward them.

“Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
